:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 ::

:: Blade gone Sideways ::

Going to school with a bunch of artsy types affords me the luxury of easily finding people willing to see independent films.

I recently saw "Sideways," a little buddy movie about a couple of late-30 guys who drive up to California Wine Country for their bachelor party of sorts. One's a struggling, yet cocksure actor about to get hitched and looking for that "last fling" before giving up his freedom. The other is a morose English teacher who's waiting to hear whether a publisher will take his latest attempt at a novel. Mr. Writer is a devout wine connoisseur whose zeal extends beyond mere affectation and snobbery. Mr. Actor enjoys wine as well but more for its inebriating effects and in truth, prefers putting other things in his mouth; specifically, women. Mr. Writer is getting over a recent (two years ago) divorce and is apprehensive when it comes to dating and unintentionally sabotages any attempts at a relationship. Mr. Actor thinks he has women and life completely figured out when in truth, he's actually about thirteen years old.

Oh by the way, this review isn’t going to contain any faggoty, banal wine cliches like "aged to perfection," "wonderfully flavorful," "full bodied," or "only good for getting hammered."

This is by far my favorite movie of the year. It's a great story about believable characters and it's funny in a way that's intelligent without being smarmy. And in contains one of the more horrifyingly funny, fifteen car pile-up of nude scene ever captured on celluloid. If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, just go see it.

Yesterday, I saw "Blade: Trinity." Not exactly an arthouse film. For that matter, it's not much of a film. It's more of a two-hour highlight reel of fight scenes, witty repertoire, and a hot chick in spandex looking, um, hot. Not that there's, given the proper mindset, anything wrong with that. Like most third movies of trilogies, this one blows, but in an immensely enjoyable way.

It's the umpteenth retelling of a vampire slayer revenge story. In this case there's quite a bit of camp thrown in for good measure, perhaps because the filmmakers ran out of ideas. I'm just saying. Quite possibly due to my mental exhaustion from studio week, I found this movie far more entertaining than it has any right to be. Not that I was blind to its flaws - Blade is now a one-dimensional, monosyllabic thug; Jessica Biel kicks some righteous ass and puts her own on fine display but her character just isn't very interesting; the gang of vampires isn't very scary; the lead Dracula "Drake" (see what I mean about running out of ideas?) is the 27,987th variation of a harangue-spouting, barely in-the-closet, blustering pile of Eurotrash; and what the hell is Parker Posey doing in this movie?!? - but the tone of the movie and the funny one-liners by the Hannibal King character - "We call ourselves the Nightstalkers. We were gonna go with the Care Bears but that was already taken," and "I just ate a ton of Garlic and I farted" - pretty much made it for me. That, by the way was one hell of a run-on sentence.

If you're gonna see a movie, go see "Sideways." It's one of the best movies of the year. But if you want some brainless fun, check out "Blade."

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 11:29 PM [+] :: | 0 comments
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